An observational constraint on gravitational lensing by objects of mass 10^9.5-10^10.9M_solar

Pedro Augusto (1,2) and Peter N. Wilkinson (2)

(1) University of Manchester, Jodrell Bank Observatory, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL
(2) Universidade da Madeira, Dep. Matemática, Caminho da Penteada, 9050 Funchal, Portugal

A radio-based search for strong gravitational lensing, with image separations in the range 160-300 milliarcsec (mas), has yielded a null result for a sample of 1665 sources (Augusto, Wilkinson & Browne 1998) whose mean redshift is estimated to be ~1.3. The lensing rate for this previously-unexplored separation range, < 1 : 555 at the 95% confidence level, is less than one arcsecond-scales - as expected from models of lensing galaxy populations. Lensing on 160-300 mas scales is expected to arise predominantly from spiral galaxies at a rate dependent on the disk-halo mass ratio and the evolving number density of the population with redshift. While the present sample is too small for there to be a high probability of finding spiral galaxy lenses, our work is a pilot survey for a much larger search based on the full CLASS database which would provide useful information on galactic structure at z~0.5. We examine other possible lens populations relevant to our present search, in particular dwarf galaxies and supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, and conclude that none of them are likely to be detected. Our null result enables us formally to rule out a cosmologically significant population of uniformly-distributed compact objects: \Omega_CO. < 0.1 (95% confidence) in the mass range 10^9.5-10^10.9M_solar.
Key words: galaxies: compact - general ; cosmology: dark matter - gravitational lensing.

Class:	Internal Report
Links:	CCM
Reference:	Augusto, P. & Wilkinson, P. N., 2000, An observational constraint on gravitational lensing by objects of mass 109.5-1010.9Msolar,  Internal Report nr.41/00 (CCM)
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